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A creased, well-thumbed snippet of parchment.

I snatched it out so fast I almost tore it in two, unfolding the note with trembling hands.

A patchwork of pencil scribbles covered the smooth surface, in two different hands – Tared’s messy writing alternating with the infinitely more familiar scrawls that I knew to have come from Creon.

It's considered rude to keep a life debt hanging over someone's head, the message at the top said, written in Tared’s hand. Be so kind (if the word has any meaning to you) to just tell me what you want from me.

I let out an abrupt breath, sinking down on the edge of Edored’s bed with the parchment clutched in my trembling fingers. That had to be the note he’d sent Creon just after we’d heard the full story of the loss of his voice – the note I’d found him reading.

Creon’s answer was jotted directly below.

Fae don't do life debts. You're most welcome to take your obligations and stick them wherever you feel the need to.

Followed by a series of increasingly messy scribbles …

You may not do life debts; I still do honour.

You saved my life when I had to flee the Crimson Court. Why don’t you consider the debt settled on that basis, if you must?

Em doubtlessly told you I didn't do any saving. I begrudgingly allowed her to save you, at most.

Do youwantto be in my debt?

If principles were easy, they wouldn't need to be principles. I suppose for a male without them, that needs to be spelled out.

I sucked in a sharp breath. We must have been well on our way across the continent by the time these notes were slipped back and forth between pockets and bags. I’dseenthem frowning at parchment every now and then, for Zera’s bloody sake – would I have been able to put a stop to it if I’d realised the significance of those seemingly unrelated moments a little earlier?

Creon’s next note was hardly more conciliatory.

I wasn't aware of this philosophical streak of yours. Almost as if you picked up a book or two in the last century.

Some of us tried to spend their time in a slightly more humane way since the Last Battle.

And then the longest message so far, scribbled down with obvious haste …

The unpleasant truth is you wouldn't have survived a year of what I did to bring her down, and you know it. Rest assured, I already know it was despicable and unforgivable. Reminding me of it won't free you of your own nagging sense of insufficiency.

I winced, unable to stop reading, unable to tear my eyes away from the slow escalation unfolding on the page before my eyes. Tared’s reply was short, but no less venomous for it.

Still fighting your fights with demon magic, I see.

I once tried not to, and was ungently reminded I would always be demon brood regardless. I suppose you want me to stop using the power while you retain your license to taunt me about it for eternity?

Imagine taunting being your greatest concern. Did you consider yourself the victim while you were burying desperate farmers alive, too?

No.

Hit a nerve, Hytherion?

Hardly. Just out of curiosity – has it ever occurred to you that perhaps I did change a little in the hundred and thirty years since you plucked me from that cursed bay?

Poor Em has suggested such a thing to me once or twice, yes. What is it about you that makes sensible people feel the sudden senseless need to save you?

Does Lyn know you think of her as senseless?

And there the notes ended.

Chapter 15